


love on the line

by orphan_account



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crimson Flower Route, First Kiss, Horrors of War, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-23 03:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23005159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The battlefield made Linhardt think of fishing.Or, better said, thinking of fishing made it easier to endure.
Relationships: Caspar von Bergliez/Linhardt von Hevring, Linhardt von Hevring & Claude von Riegan
Comments: 14
Kudos: 94





	love on the line

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pastellified](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastellified/gifts).



> HELLO okay i have to ramble a bit here!!
> 
> this fic took me a bit over a week to write seeing that most of it was done while at work. whoops. anyway!  
> a while ago i ran a giveaway on twitter to celebrate reaching 50 followers and the lovely flayn / pastellifield won! they requested some casphardt that involved linhardt realizing caspar liked him, and i kind of took it and ran with it. this still counts, i swear.
> 
> technically the giveaway prize was around 3k but i accidentally got too excited writing this and doubled that. the more words the merrier
> 
> a few thank yous are in order! first of all, to the lovely flayn for participating in my giveaway and constantly expressing their excitement for this piece.  
> second, i want to thank the amazing [beanyflavor](https://twitter.com/beanyflavor) on twitter for drawing the section breakers for this fic in such a short notice. i wanted to make this giveaway something special and she helped a ton!!  
> last but not least, i would also like to take my dear friend [who](https://twitter.com/hardkourparcore) for taking the time to beta this unnecessarily long mess and putting up with my screaming.
> 
> without furder ado, enjoy the fic, and feel free to come chat me up! im @wordglitch on twitter!!

Hook the bait. Cast the line. Wait with a nap. Every hour, reel it in. Rinse, repeat, and fishing made for the perfect way to pass the free time between classes. Some of that free time resulted in skipped classes, but Linhardt would’ve slept through them regardless, so whether he was sleeping at his desk or in peace, fishing, couldn’t have made much of a difference to Manuela. The bucket at his side only held three fish. It wasn’t the most successful of sessions, but between his fourth and soon to be fifth nap Linhardt was too blissfully sleepy to care. They would all be released with the sunset, regardless of how many he caught.

It was partially cloudy, though from time to time the sun would peek out from the clouds to greet Linhardt’s cheeks with warmth and the tease of a headache. He’d lay on his back when it was hiding to look at the clouds and count the shapes in them to sleep — he liked the blue of the sky, peppered with the clouds that reminded him of bruises on a reckless fighter’s skin, always coming and going with the winds and time. Linhardt didn’t consider it his favorite color, wasn’t sure _if_ he had a favorite color to begin with, but if he did that shade of blue had to be up there.

He shifted onto his back when the shadows came back, expecting blue, yet he was greeted both by a green sea of questions and Claude’s hair falling onto his face and tickling his nose. Linhardt sneezed, though that didn’t get Claude out of his personal space. Claude was welcome there or he wouldn’t have invaded it in the first place, though Linhardt would’ve appreciated to see the man even slightly bothered by the fact he’d been sneezed on. Yet he remained there, making eye contact, wearing that smile that revealed he had something to talk about and it couldn’t wait; Linhardt lazily motioned his hand as an invite for Claude to sit. 

He didn’t. “You’re skipping class again,” Claude said, no hint of scolding in his voice like Edelgard might have. 

“So are you.” Linhardt stretched his arms and let out a yawn. If Claude didn’t want to move, then he wouldn’t, either. “Have you come to tell me the obvious?”

“Depends.” Claude blinked, very slowly, and it gave Linhardt the impression it had been the only time he’d done it since arriving. “Caspar has been trying to join the Golden Deer.”

Linhardt didn’t process it for the first ten seconds, and then he did. It felt as if one of the fish had jumped out of their bucket and was currently flopping on his face; uncomfortable, slimy, and worst of all confusing. “I cannot see why he would do that.”

“You trust me, yes?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Linhardt. Everyone knows Caspar likes you. Except you, it seems.” With that he stepped away, allowing both the sunlight and his words to pour onto Linhardt’s skin with a warmth that was bordering the unbearable. Caspar liked him. Whether he was red from the casual reveal, the heat, or Claude’s cheerful and encouraging laugh, Linhardt was sure of one single thing.

That Caspar liked him was anything but obvious.

Hook the bait — heal the soldiers. The amount of bodies that Linhardt had to navigate through to reach the ones that were still breathing, some piled up on one another, was too great to count.There was nothing beautiful or heroic about war, even on the defending side. There was no such thing as honor. Claude had ordered a slow retreat towards the port of Derdriu where they would make a proper final stand, and then run away on boats coming to their aid from Almyra were it to fail. Battle was far stronger than survival in those men, and every time Linhardt healed them they would only throw themselves back at the enemy instead of retreating.

Like bait to a fish, they’d go inside the water, over and over, until the fish was done playing.

Linhardt was covered from head to toe in blood, none of it his. Disgusting, red, thick and obscuring his vision, the smell so strong and nauseating he had thrown up several times at the beginning of the morning. He had grown accustomed to it, and that revelation was enough to almost throw him into a panic. Almost, because he had made a promise to Claude, a promise that tethered him to those stubborn men and had him healing them through gritted teeth, listening to their screams and pleas for help. 

The sky above the battlefield was shielded by a thick layer of smoke. Burning houses that trapped them in Derdriu from the mainland were the culprits. Linhardt wished he at least had the sky to look at. The blue, that calming blue with its bruised clouds and passage of time and gentle laughs — instead he got the gray, and the metallic taste of blood on his tongue telling him that this battle would only end when an axe inevitably split him in half.

Stuck in time, stuck in war, stuck at the edge of the frontlines. 

Another body fell at his side for help, and Linhardt watched the soldier with tired eyes, wondering if there would be a point in healing someone in terrible pain only for them to go through suffering again. Death was almost there for this soldier, like a peaceful sleep, and Linhardt’s hands hesitated before muttering the healing spell in a mechanical and well practiced song. Caspar would’ve done the same. 

The _Caspar_ voice at the back of Linhardt’s head had accompanied him in his friend’s absence, as much as Linhardt tried to keep it silent lest he felt any longing, yet in the monotony of battle it was showing its ugly head. Caspar would’ve gotten hurt. He always did, with a big grin on his face, and even with his small size he was like a walking sign that said ‘hit me’. Caspar got hurt, Linhardt patched him up, and Caspar would get hurt again just like these soldiers before Linhardt.

Except Caspar had never covered Linhardt in blood. He’d never been between life and death, with Linhardt forced to make the decision of the fate of yet another life, he’d never screamed in agony when Linhardt’s magic repaired bone and muscle.

Caspar always smiled, wide and toothy, full of life.

The soldier Linhardt was healing didn’t make it. 

He moved to the next, trying to chase away the part of his brain that was replacing every dying and dead man’s face with Caspar’s, but it had settled like the family cat in his best armchair. Determined to stay, determined to torment him.

Changing class was a tedious process that involved a lot of paperwork, boring meetings, and Hubert’s stabbing gazes of disapproval. No one had outright told him to reconsider it, and Caspar took Linhardt’s decision in stride like he took everything else, yet he could tell from Edelgard’s glances and her whispers with Hubert that they weren’t very pleased with his decision. He was a noble, heir of house Hevring, belonging to Adrestia body and soul or so the oath they all took as children dictated. Linhardt didn’t think a promise he made when he could barely count to twenty should hold any weight.

It was a silent act of defiance — not towards Edelgard, but towards everything Linhardt didn’t have the energy to deal with. He was only changing classes, not leaving the Empire behind for good; they were making too huge of a deal out of it. The evening when Manuela asked him several times if he was _sure_ he wanted to join her class, he’d replied ‘yes’ in the most convincing tone he could muster just to get her to sign the papers already.

The official reasons were he wanted to experience a new studying environment and grow as a future minister through building relationships with students from a different country.

The true reasons were Linhardt was tired. He was tired before anything had even _happened_ , yet his trouble avoiding senses coiled in his chest like a snake of unwelcome dread. Edelgard had plans, but there was no evidence for his suspicions. He hadn’t seen or overheard anything, at least not evidence that others would consider damning. It was only the weight of her step, the extra sighs from her lips, that she was less forgiving with Linhardt’s well crafted schedule of unscheduled naps. 

Linhardt valued his peace. The fear that one day it would be pulled out from under him was a constant, kind tap at the back of his mind, not present enough to grab his attention yet still there, that dose of reality his family would say he needed. He didn’t need anything like that. Reality was well known to him, and so he simply chose to postpone it. Joining the Golden Deer, where everything seemed so much more relaxed, would be a good way to pretend things _weren’t_ going to happen sometime in the not so distant future.

Finding comfort among them was never part of Linhardt’s initial expectations. They were a rowdy bunch, for sure, and Linhardt could swear on his crest that Claude talked more than Ferdinand on a good day — while Linhardt had nothing against Ferdinand, his conversation topics couldn’t even put Linhardt to sleep. Despite that, he had found some semblance of calmness as a student of the Golden Deer. Nobody chided him for sleeping, in or out of class, nor constantly reminding him of titles and duties that could wait.

Claude as a house leader was different enough from Edelgard that made it easier for Linhardt to not simply avoid him, carrying a personality that was hard not to like even under what were certainly crafted lies. Or maybe it was the lies that had made Linhardt like him more; they had become, as fate would have it, _friends_ , and Linhardt still found it odd to say the word friend so casually about someone. 

With Caspar it was the easiest. It had always been.

Calling Caspar his friend was as natural as breathing, and it wasn’t like they stopped spending time together. They weren’t in the same class anymore, but all of Linhardt’s free time was peppered with Caspar’s company, either Caspar dragging him to ‘new amazing napping places’ or their secret night time adventures of trying to find all of Garreg Mach’s secret passages — so far they’d only found one, and it wasn’t a secret passage as much as an unused closet hiding behind a tapestry. 

_Caspar has been trying to join the Golden Deer_ . It really made no sense. Not even with Claude’s reveal that Caspar liked him, which stirred certain emotions in Linhardt that he wasn’t yet ready to decipher and work through. The more he thought about it, however, the more it made his chest flutter that Caspar _liked_ him, that their time together in the evenings wasn’t enough and Caspar was ready to follow him into a different class. Truthfully, Linhardt missed him too in those hours, but the evenings they spent together more than made up for it.

The key word, trying, was what had Linhardt bothered more than anything else. Yes, it was tedious, and involved paperwork, which he knew for certain that Caspar hated even more than Linhardt did. Trying made it sound like something was in Caspar’s way more than his dislike of reading endless chunks of academic text. One possibility made sense above all others; whatever Edelgard was planning, it was in motion, and allowing anyone else to transfer could either hinder it or inconvenience her.

Caspar wouldn’t be allowed to change classes.

In the evenings, they met up all the same, though neither of them brought up Caspar’s plan. Knowing him, he was trying to surprise Linhardt, and Linhardt would’ve gone through the trouble of acting surprised for once if it was a possibility. It wasn’t. Linhardt watched Caspar do stretching exercises from the comfort of his bed, book in his lap and half asleep, all his energy spent on thinking. Caspar liked him.

And Linhardt, under the threat of the unknown, knew that he _liked_ Caspar, too.

Cast the line — throw the soldiers back in.

The screams of the battlefield were a cacophony of victory and defeat, the strain in the voice of those that were winning and the last cry of those fallen. They all blurred into each other enough to sound the same, and Linhardt knew he was sending people either back to their death or to return more broken than before. It was just like fishing, in that regard. He’d pulled back bait still alive, struggling in the hook, only to shove it back in. Dead bait, just like dead soldiers, was not useful.

Some voices did stand out; he had learned the name of some soldiers, of some of the people whose lives he’d been entrusted with, even if not all of them. He recognized their screams and tried to drown them out in everything else. On the attacking side there were voices he could recognize too. Edelgard, without a doubt, her tone more commanding and urgent than ever before; their former professor turned wrath of the battlefield. Ferdinand, he thought. But not the voice he wanted to hear.

Caspar was undeniably the loudest man alive. During fighting even more so. Were he there, Linhardt would hear him all across Derdriu, his shouts perhaps loud enough to even hold back Claude’s incoming ships. In the end, it was for the best that Caspar wasn’t there, as Linhardt wouldn’t have wanted to be seen in that state, to stare at his friend — loved one — in the eye as he let out his last breath. Maybe Edelgard had excused him, or maybe Caspar hadn’t even made it that far.

_No_. Linhardt shook the thought away.

The skies had only gotten darker, and a single drop of water fell on Linhardt’s nose. Two. Several. It began raining, cold and unforgiving, washing some of the blood from his skin and soaking into suddenly heavy robes. Less and less soldiers were coming back, the Empire’s forces finally breaching the stalemate of the past hours. Wet and heavy hearted, Linhardt fell back between two bodies still warm, looking at the sky. He could still make a run for it, catch up to Claude, get on one of the escape boats. That was a nice thought; sailing for a few weeks towards new lands, getting sea sick, napping in the swaying embrace of a raging sea. Forget about war, the deaths he was the indirect cause of. Sleep.

The rain was louder than the shouts, than Caspar’s voice in Linhardt’s head saying _get up, run Linhardt, GET UP_. For the first time in five long years, Linhardt sighed out a request for Caspar to be quiet, and let sleep take him.

“Did you know Edelgard left?”

Caspar was sprawled over the pillows they’d covered the floor of Linhardt’s room with. His feet had tangled with Linhardt’s in a comfortable position for both of them, though all things considered it was hard to be anything but comfortable at Caspar’s side. Understanding that he too held feelings for Caspar hadn’t necessarily ruined that; nothing was different, in essence, though it didn’t stop Linhardt from wondering if they would stay like this.

The idea of trying to put those emotions into words and ruin what already was between them horrified him. He was much happier when he wasn’t so aware of each of Caspar’s smiles, or their hand touches, or how it affected him to see a new dark bruise on Caspar’s skin. 

“Liiin. You’re ignoring me again.” Caspar’s voice was raspy. He’d caught a cold that he was bound to pass to Linhardt just like every other time.

“I’m not.” Linhardt got more comfortable among the pillows, and found a better angle to look at Caspar from.

“Prove it!” 

“You said Edelgard left, and judging by the tone, you would’ve liked to go, too.”

“She took Hubert with her so it’s gotta be something _big_.” 

Linhardt sighed. That could only mean she was getting things done, and his days of peace would be cut short. But she only involved Hubert, no one else from their classmates, so he held onto the wishful thinking that they would be kept outside of all that was bound to happen. He couldn’t exactly imagine Caspar staying put, though maybe if Linhardt asked, his friend would see to reason. It was too early to worry about that.

“Caspar, we both know that when both of them are involved, we might end up in big trouble.”

Caspar scrunched his nose. “I thought you liked trouble.”

“Only when I cause it. Now if you don’t mind, I am very comfortable, and will take a nap.” 

“Linhardt! You just woke up!”

“Exactly.” Linhardt was wearing a warm smile as he pretended to have already passed out, to Caspar’s indignation and leading to very insistent attempts at shaking him awake. He didn’t like it, but it was priceless to him nonetheless. Caspar’s roughness, his horrible way of eating, the passion with which he did absolutely everything he believed in, Linhardt couldn’t see himself living without any of it. He should put in a word to make it easier for Caspar to join the Golden Deer. Maybe Caspar was right there, or he had a gut instinct regarding the events to come.

The two of them getting separated was the worst possible scenario.

Wait with a nap — Linhardt was good at that. It was still raining by the time he woke up, and the voices weren’t shouting as much. They were just as loud, however, which meant they’d gotten close. He dared not move or open his eyes, the small vibrations of the earth letting him know that imperial soldiers were patrolling amongst the lines of corpses Linhardt was blending with. He hadn’t thought of surviving when he laid down among them. With each passing second, however, he was more self aware that he was still breathing, slow and calculated not to be noticed as alive but _breathing_.

If they were stabbing corpses to make sure they were truly dead, then Linhardt was done for. The Edelgard he remembered wouldn’t be the kind to do that, but that didn’t give him anything to go by. In five years, many things had changed, and he’d be naïve to think Edelgard or any of their former friends were the same. He heard Ferdinand again, arguing with Hubert about ‘decent burials for the fallen’, drowned away by the rain. They walked right past him, and if there was ever a time that Linhardt was glad he was good at not being noticed it was then.

“Do we know anything of Linhardt?” Ferdinand stopped somewhere a few paces away.

“We haven’t seen the traitor. I am inclined to believe he’s hiding somewhere with Claude at the heart of the city.”

“Hubert, he’s still our friend. I would rather… bring him home than add him to the bodycount.”

“And what of the other so called ‘friends’ you’ve killed so far?”

A good two minutes of silence. The friction of Ferdinand’s heel in the mud, and them resuming their walk, away from Linhardt and the corpses. The rest of the imperial army followed, so many of them that the ground was shaking under hooves and ironclad heavy feet. It would take a single wrong movement to get attention on him, a single breath too loud; Linhardt remained still. Even with the vague promise that Ferdinand would welcome him with open arms, that didn’t guarantee anything, and he didn’t want to return. His family name had become a thing of the past and it was welcome to stay that way.

That warm sensation of nostalgia still settled into his stomach. Of course Ferdinand considered him a friend after all that time. It was ridiculous, he was by all senses of the word a deserter, yet someone back in the Empire missed him. 

He only braved opening his eyes once the earth stilled and the rain was threatening to fill his mouth. Gray sky. The one in his dreams was always a soft blue, like his afternoons spent fishing at the monastery, or when he’d find a quiet spot to nap while Caspar trained in the main courtyard. Blue like Caspar’s hair — Linhardt wondered if it’d gotten longer with the years or if Caspar finally went for that haircut his father would never approve of. He hoped it was the latter. It used to be a friendly contest between them, to try get on the nerves of their fathers in as many ways as possible. Caspar had the advantage, because old count Bergliez had the patience of a firework about to go off. It also crossed his mind that Caspar had most likely gotten more handsome; he was almost tempted to sleep some more, to go back to the nice sky in his dreams and the Caspar that was there, but he’d be risking too much.

There was a chance, however minimal, that stragglers of the Imperial army were still behind and would find him in his sleep. If anyone saw him, he prefered to be awake and with a good chance to make a run for it. While he was exhausted, he could sprint and cast magic enough to save his own skin. Pain kept him paralyzed in his hideout between corpses for a few more seconds. His muscles had gone stiff from the cold, and the fixed position for who knows how many hours. A deep breath. It took effort, and some wind magic to help push him up, but he managed to stand on wobbly feet and instantly pressed into the wall next to him for support.

A peek from behind the wall revealed nothing, only more bodies in a more open space, some even floating in ponds or strung over trees. It was better to not stop and think how they’d gotten up there. He’d seen enough gore that day alone for a lifetime, so much so that he greeted the sight of some bodies with morbid curiosity. He’d known that one, and the other, some men he remembered used to be nothing more than simple guards of house Hevring.

Wars dragged everyone with them.

And while there was still the angry voice in his head telling him that Caspar hadn’t been there, and that Caspar wouldn’t be a corpse amongst many, Linhardt stepped out into the open to give his fears reason to either shut up or scream.

Unlike all his nighttime explorations through Garreg Mach corridors, he hoped he would find nothing.

To Claude’s somewhat obvious displeasure, the Golden Deer was never there when anything important happened. All the missions that turned out to be of significance went to Edelgard’s class, and while Linhardt was glad they were still relatively out of trouble thanks to it, he had to admit his curiosity was just as strong as Claude’s. They stayed up a few nights — and skipped class as a result — trying to piece the irregular chunks of the grand scheme of things together. The scheme that Rhea was behind, that the Eagles’ professor was somehow involved in. It all revolved around the professor.

He’d gotten caught up enough in that, in the complicated diagrams he’d drawn with Claude, to forget about Edelgard. It was at the back of his mind, something to be mildly aware of, though frankly theorizing about conspiracies and beasts and saints was far more entertaining than properly _worrying_. He didn’t allow himself that. Mornings fishing, afternoons with Caspar, evenings with Claude, there was no time or place for that.

Until there was.

The faculty members never shared the exact details. An uprising had happened at the Holy Tomb, led by Edelgard; the Black Eagles fought her at first but ultimately joined their newly appointed Emperor to prepare for an assault on Garreg Mach. All of them, except him. Linhardt found out about it when remaining students had thrown insults at him, told him to go join the ‘heretics’. It wasn’t their insults or enmity that bothered him, not even that Claude’s friend group had stepped in to drag him away to safety. After all, he’d become one of them. He was their classmate, their friend, and they knew better than anyone that Linhardt had no involvement in Edelgard’s revolution against the church.

That was the problem. It was only him. Caspar hadn’t managed to join nor befriend these people, and he’d gone after Edelgard certainly with his confidence high and without any regrets, ready to fight for beliefs that he’d take as his own. They’d been _separated_ without having a say on it. Linhardt, on the inside of the wall, and Caspar who would come to tear it down. There was no one for Linhardt to blame. The Empire? Their upbringing? No. 

Maybe himself. 

At any point, he could’ve stepped in to help Caspar transfer class. He didn’t. He never talked to Caspar about anything that mattered, if he stopped to think about it, and that only made him more frustrated. He would sleep it away, if Edelgard wouldn’t be there by the end of the week, if he wasn’t to come face to face with his best friend and the man he loved at the other end of an axe. There were many things he had to think about.

Claude came out of nowhere the night before her attack, to take over Linhardt’s bed and offer him some fruit. Linhardt wasn’t hungry, but it helped to bite into something when it came to keeping his mind busy.

“I don’t exactly want to get psychoanalyzed this evening, Claude.” Linhardt bit into one of the apples. It was a good amount of sour.

“None of that from me.” Claude sounded serious enough to have Linhardt meet his gaze, understand what the young leader was there for. “What’s your answer, then?”

“...Must I have one?” Linhardt said. He had it, but it weighed heavy.

“I’m not the one who needs it, my friend.” 

“Of course not. If it was for you, it would be heaps easier.” Linhardt gave the apple another bite like it would help. “I’ll come with you to the Alliance.”

Claude’s expression allowed an encouraging smile to take over. “And Caspar?”

“I will meet him again. By then, I hope I’ll be more ready to tell him everything.” It was also a way of running away. It had all been so sudden, the feelings, the uprising, Linhardt being stuck in a position where he doubted his former colleagues would think thrice before striking him down, like they’d strike anyone else involved. Caspar and him needed different circumstances. _He_ needed different circumstances, to stop and think about what his feelings truly meant, and Caspar’s own affections.

He’d leaned into Claude, head on Claude’s shoulder. The war to come couldn’t last that long. Linhardt gave it a year at most, and then he’d hold Caspar’s hand and they’d watch the stars together for as long as they existed in the sky.

“Any predictions, master tactician?” Linhardt said to fill the silence. Claude owed him some jokes.

“For once, none. I’m scared.”

Reel it in — fishing for the sake of it always meant one could be content with whatever they got. It was much different when there was some sort of prize or competition involved. Years ago, Flayn had put them through that ordeal of catching a fish, _the fish_ , no substitutes. He’d sat that one out. Looking for the perfect catch in a vast lake and trying to spot a certain man through all the bodies was equally unpleasant and nerve wrecking. He wanted to see Caspar again, not find him there. They were vastly different things.

Linhardt’s legs were threatening to give in again. He’d witnessed Ferdinand assist horses with birth a few times, and a three seconds old foal had more balance than he did. At least the rain was finally showing some signs of letting up, which would make his search for nothing much easier, and get rid of the weight of the water hitting his back and slowing his steps. If the Goddess had decided to make the death overtaken land look even more miserable she was succeeding. A lot of blood was washing away with the water in small streams, between mounds of mud and towards the ponds nearby.

The sea by Derdriu would not be spared the dye. 

He wasn’t sure where to go from there. Once Edelgard was done with her conquest of the Alliance, he could settle somewhere in it, under a new name. There was also the possibility of Claude surviving the whole ordeal to take into account; the man was good at surviving and it was a thought that made his exploration more bearable. Claude, saying something out of character like ‘kiss my behind, Edelgard’ while flying away on a beautiful white wyvern, and then an arrow piercing through his heart and—

Too far. His mind had gone too far, enough so that Linhardt forgot to look where he was stepping and tripped on one of the corpses. It _complained_. Corpses didn’t speak, which meant it either wasn’t one, or the Empire had found a way to bring back the dead, which seemed an incredibly useless thing to do. More importantly, it complained in a voice that Linhardt recognized and it rang clear as crystal in his ears, like he’d heard it yesterday and not five years ago, when things were still peaceful and the sky was still blue and Caspar was there.

Caspar.

“Linhardt!” 

The person he’d tripped over had sprung up like a spring forced into tension for too long, and before Linhardt knew it someone who had never been this tall was picking him up with a laugh so warm there was no more cold in Linhardt’s tired bones. Only Caspar. Caspar, who was there before him, drenched in blood that wasn’t his just like Linhardt was and holding him so tight Linhardt thought his bones would _break_ , and he didn’t mind. Caspar was there. Caspar was there, alive, breathing and holding him, so real he could confuse it for a dream.

There were many things Linhardt could’ve done at that moment. Express his surprise, ask many questions, slap himself to make sure that no, he hadn’t died and gone to heaven. Instead, he held onto Caspar for dear life, the rainfall mixing in with the tears that he couldn’t hold back and were flowing like gigantic telltale signs that said ‘I missed you’ in the biggest lettering possible. Caspar had cut his hair just like Linhardt thought he would — he’d grown taller, still shorter than Linhardt, but tall enough that there was nothing to make fun of. There was only the man in front of him, healthy and strong, and oh so handsome, and Linhardt still loved Caspar.

He loved Caspar just as much. More. Much more. 

When exactly he leaned over to press their lips together into a kiss didn’t matter; Caspar’s sound of surprise, but that he only held Linhardt tighter served as encouragement. Linhardt’s feet touched the ground again before they parted. He was afraid that if they spent too many seconds not kissing, Caspar would be gone the second he opened his eyes, that he’d become one of the clouds in the sky. To his relief, Caspar was still there, face red with a blooming blush that Linhardt felt proud of causing. His own wasn’t doing any better.

“Lin,” Caspar blurted out, “I-I kinda, I love you, and—”

Linhardt laughed. He hadn’t laughed in too long, and it felt like a breath of proper fresh air. 

“C’mon, Lin, you can’t just laugh at someone confessing to you!” Caspar shook him by the shoulders. Yesterday. He could pretend it all was yesterday.

“I’m not laughing at you, Caspar. I’m laughing at myself.”

“...Why would you do that?”

“It’s not important. Can I say something?” Linhardt let his entire weight fall against Caspar. He was extremely tired, but Caspar didn’t let him down. He didn’t even mind that Caspar was covered in blood. “I love you too.”

Caspar’s voice cracked. “For real?”

“For real. I’m happy to see you again.”

They couldn’t have fallen in silence for more than a minute, which was already far beyond any of Caspar’s previous records. There was a wordless understanding between them that they both needed it; to hold each other without anything said for that period of time, close but not close enough. If somehow they could freeze there in that hug minus with all the rain and stench of blood Linhardt would be as thankful as a thirsty man finding water for the first time in days.

Linhardt broke their silence. “Where — _what_ were you doing?”

“Oh! I was playing dead.” Caspar laced their fingers together and grinned wide. “Very dead. Fooled even Hubert.”

Linhardt didn’t comment that there was no chance Hubert would mistakenly think someone was dead when they weren’t. Had he seen Linhardt, too…? “You were playing dead.”

“Yeah. I had this suuuuper secret message from Claude. It said something like, ‘if you want to see Linhardt again, pretend you fall at Derdriu’. Wasn’t sure how it would work, but I wanted to try anyway. I wanted to see you.”

Linhardt stared at Caspar in near disbelief. Claude. A secret message. Claude, who had somehow foreseen what his soldiers would do, what Linhardt would do, and banked on it to get the two men reunited. Such a ridiculous plan, with so many things that could’ve gone wrong, yet like most of Claude’s ridiculous ideas it had _worked_. In the distance, the heart of Derdriu was finally falling. In the distance, ships of people that had decided to leave the new Fódlan behind were leaving towards Almyra; Linhardt could only hope that Claude was on one of them.

He laughed again. “So you receive a secret message, from someone claiming to be Claude, and follow it without thinking twice.”

“What was there to think about?”

“That it could be a trap.”

Caspar shrugged. “Worth it.”

Oh, Caspar was a moron, and Linhardt was the other moron, because he leaned over to kiss Caspar _again_. The two of them were then presumably dead, free to go wherever they wanted, to walk away. No more war, no more fear, just him and Caspar and the bright blue sky ahead of them. He’d almost expected the rain to stop entirely, but it hadn’t. No poetic sunshine for them, which was somewhat disappointing, but Linhardt could make do. 

“Lin, I gotta breathe.”

“Hmm, then you better start getting used to it.” He offered Caspar his hand, which Caspar took without hesitating. “Where to first?”

“Somewhere where I can take a bath.”

“Never thought I’d hear those words from your mouth.”

“I wash myself _all_ the time!”

They set off with no direction. It was their time to catch up. And with the days, the weeks, and the months, it would become their time to create something new.

Ferdinand wouldn’t leave him alone. “Hubert, you _have_ to tell me what you know and I don’t! You’ve been wearing that terrifying smile of yours all evening long!”

Hubert, knowing better than that, continued to file his nails, the smile still on his face. “It is nothing you have to concern yourself with, Ferdinand. I am only thinking of where the dead might be.”

Claude owed him another game of chess.

The sea and the sky merged into one far into the horizon. The reds of the sunset painted themselves into the waves, a landscape that Linhardt tried to ingrain into his mind before his seasickness got the best of him again. He’d come on the deck for the fresh air, because he was equally sick inside and outside, and somehow traveling all over with Caspar had made it easier for him to be a bit more active. Not by much, but there were things he enjoyed much more than he ever had before. The salty air was doing miracles in short bursts of times, and if anything, Caspar was right behind him to catch him.

He turned around to face his fiancé with the sunset as a backdrop, falling over his hair and shoulders as he did his best to smile. Not throw up. Smile. “Captain said we’d be there by tomorrow morning.”

“Finally,” Caspar said with a yawn. “I’m bored of rocking left to right and back and forth.”

“ _Caspar_.”

“Seasick, right.” Caspar barked out a laugh. “Are you gonna tell me who our secret Almyran host will be already?”

“The King.”

“You’re making that up!”

“Most likely.” 

Linhardt closed his eyes. Beyond the sea there was Almyra and so, so much more. Claude had promised to receive them properly, which in his language with Linhardt meant discreet and with the best beds Almyra had to offer. They wouldn’t stay there much.

The world was waiting.


End file.
